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The medical doctor in Malaya named Kuppuswami, who was
to become after his renunciation Swami Sivananda, was filled with the
spirit of selfless service. He managed a hospital and ministered to patients
in a loving and conscientious way. Abundant charity, sympathy and kindness
were always prominent traits, but as his spiritual tendencies grew he
became more interested in a life of simplicity and renunciation. In 1923
he left his worldly life in Malaya and eventually came to Rishikesh, India.
On the 1st June, 1924 he was initiated into sannyas and given the name
Swami Sivananda. Soon he was serving the sick and poor near his kutir
(hut/house) in Swarg Ashram, on the Ganges three kilometres upstream from
Rishikesh.
Swami Sivananda had renounced the world to devote himself to study, meditation
and benevolent kindness towards all. His aims, and the basis of his austerities,
were to see the world as the body of God, and humanity as the children
of the Lord. Service was part and parcel of his austerity, and that service
was utterly magnanimous and dynamic, involving a great deal of personal
discomfort and sacrifice.
His austerities, meditation, service and study continued unabated for
years as he evolved "from man to god-man." The actual date and
nature of Gurudev's illumination are unknown, but we do have these words
of his: "My wish has been fulfilled. I have met my Beloved."
It is from this realisation of his oneness with the Absolute that his
future mission would emerge.
Swami Sivananda, with all his exalted human qualities of joy, overwhelming
generosity, kindness and humility cannot be defined by the merely human.
He was a Jivanmukta, a manifestation of the Eternal dwelling on Earth.
His life served as a window into the essence of divinity and as a harbinger
of hope for all seekers of God.
There is no explaining an enlightened sage; one can only marvel at the
few things our limited minds are capable of perceiving and understanding.
Seen in this way, even the most awe-inspiring aspects of Gurudev's being
were only reflections of something infinite and absolute in him, which
we cannot yet grasp. Swami Sivananda was the utmost example of selfless
service, spiritual wisdom, love and reverence for all life. Through word
and deed he made the greatest truths come alive in the simplest and most
practical ways. "My life is my teaching," he once said. Through
that life we can gain some notion of the true glory of God. He wanted
nothing less for those who revere him than the same blissful self-realisation
that he himself attained.
Hallowed is the place, hallowed are the times and hallowed are the people
who are graced by the presence of one such as this. Jai Sivananda ("Victory
to Sivananda")
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